Messages

46

Kegging and Bottling / Re: high alcohol bottling

« on: November 10, 2011, 12:28:30 PM »

[You want to leave that beer in primary on the whole yeast cake until it is completly attenuated. This means when you have hit a stable gravity for at least 3 days. So no secondary, generally once you transfer to secondary you have removed so much yeast that it has a hard time finishing up any remaining sugar. If you make sure the gravity is stable you can add your priming sugar and be confident that it will not over carb. In terms of adding yeast at bottling it is not absoutley necesary but it is 'cheap insurance'. You might well have plenty of remaining yeast but is is very stressed by the high alcahol environment and half packet of dry yeast is pretty cheap so why chance it? ]
[/quote]

So you go straight from primary to bottles once the final gravity is stable for 3 days?  I assume this means less than 2 weeks?  Aren't you worried it could blow bottles?

47

General Homebrew Discussion / Re: Temp question: How exact?

« on: November 10, 2011, 08:22:08 AM »

Cool. Appreciate the advice

48

General Homebrew Discussion / Re: Temp question: How exact?

« on: November 10, 2011, 08:16:47 AM »

I actually have a thermostat that controls my fridge temps.  Are you saying there should be a probe within the liquid that is connected to the thermostat or do you just modify the temperature in the fridge? 

49

Kegging and Bottling / Re: high alcohol bottling

« on: November 10, 2011, 07:52:14 AM »

Just the topic that's on my mind.... I just made a Belgian Quad for the first time.  I figured after secondaring it down for a month, I'd try to put it in bottles.  First question: do I need to leave it in the secondary for a longer time to allow more sugars to be used up so as not to create overcarbed bottles?  Next question:  I used Wyeast Belgian Abbey 1762, are you saying I need to add additional yeast for priming/carbonation?  The original yeast is not sufficient? 

50

General Homebrew Discussion / Temp question: How exact?

« on: November 10, 2011, 07:36:58 AM »

Many recipes call for certain fermenation temperatures or temperature ranges.  I've heard that the temperature in the fermenation is a bit higher than the surrounding temperature.  So, how does everyone look at this.............are those fermentation temperature guidelines referring to the surrounding temperature, or do they expect you to consider the inside environment of the fermenting beer?  I tried placing a temperature probe inside the primary to get the exact temperature once for an octoberfest.  This worked miserably, and the beer didn't finish down to the appropriate gravity.  Should we lower the outside temperature to account for the higher inside temperature??? Hmmmmmm

51

Kegging and Bottling / Rush carbing

« on: October 27, 2011, 05:02:27 PM »

Hey guys/gals.  I looked through the last 10 pages regarding my question and wasn't finding an answer even though I know it has been discussed before.  So, I need to serve some kegged brews at a party this saturday.  I'm kegging a saison.  It was put in the keg on Tuesday.  I cooled to 34 overnight and turned the psi up to 25 wednesday evening.  I checked it today and there really is not much carbonation.  I rocked it a bit at about 28 psi today (thursday).  I'm worried this beer will not be ready on saturday evening.  Any thoughts?

52

Pimp My System / Pimp'n system

« on: April 01, 2011, 02:38:28 PM »

Did you guys read about Andrew's system?  How amazing is that!  That makes my rubbermaid cooler system look like baby talk.  He does not have all of the heavy lifting and everything is tightly regulated. Must say I'm envious.  But where do you even start?  Seems like you almost need to be an engineer to creat something like that.  I'm sure there is also some monetary investment needed. 

53

Kegging and Bottling / Regulator Repair

« on: February 18, 2011, 03:14:30 PM »

Just curious:?  I dropped my regulator a while back. It seems that it not reading properly.  I found that out the hard way: I way over carbonated a beer on just 10PSI.  So do you guys know how to recalibrate these things?

54

All Grain Brewing / Re: More about water

« on: January 29, 2011, 02:35:22 PM »

Wow! Some really great advice and ideas.  Do many people use Britta filters?  Do these filters remove any important nutritients?  My second question is: How do you find out what your water profile is? 

55

All Grain Brewing / More about water

« on: January 27, 2011, 05:08:16 PM »

I've seen many recent posts regarding mash pH, etc.  Being relatively new to all-grain, I have never really investigated wether my water profile was appropriate or wether I was hitting a good pH.  So my question is... how important are these things?  recently I've been using distilled water for the whole mash, since my tap water tastes bad.  I have had pretty good results.   But am I leaving out vital minerals, etc that are found in tap water?  Could I have better efficiencies if I started paying attention to mash pH?

56

All Grain Brewing / Too big a grain bill?

« on: January 22, 2011, 08:47:15 AM »

Hey guys! This would be my first post.  Sadly I did not know about this forum, despite being a homebrewer for about 4 years.  I was wondering if a 10gallon rubbermaid mash tun would fit a 20.5lb grain bill.  Some have said "not doable", but others have said that if I use a water to grain ration of 1.25qt/lb, then it's doable.  If decreasing the water to grain ratio is the only way to make it work, then how would decreasing the ratio affect the beer?  Does a thicker mash decrease efficiency?  Anyway, my big question is can I go "all-grain" or do I need to decrease the grain and supplement with DME or LME.  Thanks!